On this page there are certain entries which give a genealogical researching tip e.g. "Remember something your grandfather told you about his father". Other entries include relationship strings denoting ancestors according to their relationship to you e.g. "Father's Mother". If you place your cursor overtop the relationship string, it should highlight in blue and become underlined, signifying that it is an active link. Click on the link and you will access a linked page on which you may enter data regarding that particular ancestor. By clicking on your browser's 'back' button, you will be returned to this page, and the relationship string will be changed to green.

Read stories about your ancestors aloud to the rest of the family. Don't just collect names and dates and stick them on a computer or in a drawer; share them with your relatives. And make sure you listen to their comments too.

Prepare a dinner that your Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandparents would have eaten a century ago. Click on this icon to be taken to the website: Meal Time And The Patriots' Victuals, where you will find additional information on the subject of the foods that ancestors ate during their mealtimes.

Research and discover the ships on which your emigrant ancestors journeyed to a new land. If you succeed in finding on which ship they traveled, you might be able to then locate the original passenger list and/or an oath of allegiance to the new country. And then you might be able to see your ancestor's original handwritten signature on those documents. And guess what? If you find the ancestor's signature, you'll be able to confirm the original spelling of that ancestor's surname.

Audio or video tape conversations with elderly relatives. But be aware that when you do so, you will be invading their private space. So go about asking them to do it carefully and don't be pushy or demanding. And if they agree to an audio or video taped interview, give them time to get comfortable with the idea of having their every word and action recorded. Once your elderly relative gets used to the machine being on, he/she might forget all about it.

Start writing your family history. (A good place to start is with "I was born...") The biggest problem most people have with writing a family history (or, in fact, any book) is not knowing how to begin. The second biggest problem most people have with writing a family history is not knowing how to organize the information they have been accumulating. An idea would be to first make a list of possible topics, e.g. "My Childhood", "Homelife", "Trips our family took when I was young", "School Years", "My Life in the Army", and so forth. Then, don't worry about starting with topic #1 and going to topic #2 and so on. Simply write down ideas and thoughts about any topic, when the mood strikes you. They don't even have to be complete sentences. At some later time, when you feel like doing it, transform the ideas, words, incomplete sentences and all into actual complete sentences, sprucing everything up with additional desciptive information. Perhaps you had made a note saying: "went every summer to the beach". When you get the time and motivation to develop the idea more completely, you could transform that note into: "Every summer our whole family, including uncle Charles and aunt Betty and their seven kids, would travel two hours to Ocean City, Maryland." Click on this icon to be taken to the website: Reflections, which is the webpage family history of this site's author's father.